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Books > Biography
An intimate, original biography of tennis legend Rafael Nadal, and the first to cover his entire career.
After his award-winning look at Roger Federer, Christopher Clarey, one of the world's pre-eminent tennis writers, focuses his lens on Nadal, the Spanish force of nature. When he arrived on the scene in 2005, the record for men's singles titles at the French Open stood at six. Nadal more than doubled that total to a mind-blowing fourteen titles: one of the greatest sporting achievements in history.
Nadal won big and won often on all of tennis's surfaces: securing two Wimbledon titles on grass and six on the US Open and Australian Open hard courts. But clay, the grittiest of the game's playgrounds, is where it all came together best for his whipping forehand and warrior mindset.
Clarey, who has covered Nadal since he was seventeen, draws on interviews over twenty years with Nadal, his team and rivals like Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic. Brimming with behind-the-scenes insight, The Warrior tells the story of a global sporting icon, interlacing man and place in a unique, must-read account of the evolution of excellence.
"I became a life insurance salesman in London in May 1969, for the
glamour, the fast cars, the groupies... the beautiful women who'd
stop at nothing to buy life insurance. It's a very well-kept
secret." Thus begins Peter Rosengard's extraordinary account of his
life so far, and the endless adventures in which he made, lost and
remade a fortune; founded London's famous Comedy Store, discovered
and managed some of the greats in stand-up comedy; turned an
unknown boy band into a chart-topping sensation; and sold the
world's biggest life insurance policy in history, for $100m, which
is still celebrated by the Guinness Book of Records. This is a book
about "chutzpah," testament to a simple belief that "nothing is
impossible."
On the 50th anniversary of American Track and Field icon Steve Prefontaine’s tragic death comes an essential reappraisal of his life and legacy, a powerful work of narrative history exploring the forces and psychology that made Prefontaine great and separating the man from the myths.
In the fifty years since his tragic death in a car crash, Steve Prefontaine has towered over American distance running. One of the most recognizable and charismatic figures to ever run competitively in the United States, Prefontaine has endured as a source of inspiration and fascination—a talent who presaged the American running boom of the late 1970s and helped put Nike on the map as the brand’s first celebrity-athlete face.
Now on the anniversary of his untimely death, author Brendan O’Meara, host of the Creative Nonfiction podcast, offers a fresh, definitive retelling of Prefontaine’s life, revisiting one of the most enigmatic figures in American sports with a twenty-first-century lens. Through over a hundred and fifty original interviews with family, friends, teammates, and competitors, this long-overdue reappraisal of Prefontaine—the first such exhaustive treatment in almost thirty years—provides never-before-told stories about the unique talent, innovative mental strength, and personal struggles that shaped Prefontaine on and off the track. Bringing new depth to an athlete long eclipsed by his brash, aggressive running style and the heartbreak of his death at twenty-four, O’Meara finds the man inside the myth, scrutinizing a legacy that has shaped American sports culture for decades.
What emerges is a singular portrait of a distinctly American talent, a story written in the pines and firs of the Pacific Northwest back when running was more blue-collar love than corporate pursuit—the story of a runner whose short life casts a long, fast shadow.
"An uncharacteristic warning from one of the most respected,
non-partisan journalists in the world" -Jake Tapper, CNN "It was
riveting. I couldn't get enough of it." -Gayle King, CBS Mornings
The Trump Tapes explodes with the exclusive, inside story of
Trump's performance as president-in his own words as he is
questioned, even interrogated by Woodward, on the president's key
responsibilities from managing foreign relations to crisis
management of the coronavirus pandemic. This is the job Trump seeks
again. How did he do the first time? This is the authentic answer,
laying bare his repeated failures, obsessions, and grievances. The
Woodward interviews take a reader to a reporter's laboratory
meticulously examining the Trump presidency like never
before-spellbinding and devastating. *Including all 27 letters
between President Trump and North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un
THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER From Erin French, owner and chef of
the critically acclaimed The Lost Kitchen, comes a life-affirming
memoir about survival, renewal and the pleasure of bringing joy to
people through food. Erin French grew up barefoot on a farm, fell
in love with food as a teenager working the line at her dad's diner
and found her calling as a professional chef at her tiny restaurant
The Lost Kitchen, tucked into a 19th-century mill-now a
world-renowned dining destination. In Finding Freedom in the Lost
Kitchen, Erin tells her story of multiple rock-bottoms, from
medical student to pregnant teen, of survival as a jobless single
mother, of pills that promised release but delivered addiction, of
a man who seemed to offer salvation but ripped away her very sense
of self. And of her son who became her guiding light as she slowly
rebuilt her personal and culinary life around the solace she found
in food-as a source of comfort, a sense of place, as a way of
creating community and making something of herself, despite
seemingly impossible odds. Set against the backdrop of rural Maine
and its lushly intense, bountiful seasons, Erin French's
rollercoaster memoir reveals struggles that have taken every ounce
of her strength to overcome, and the passion and courage behind the
fairytale success of The Lost Kitchen.
At the age of 17, David McCumber was stricken with "road fever" that irresistible call to the itinerant life of a professional gambler. Twenty-two years later, he got the chance to follow that dream-not as a player but as the "stakehorse" (financial backer) for Tony Annigoni, a non-smoking, macrobiotic-eating "Renaissance Pool Hustler," student of Eastern religion, and master of the pure green-felt poetry of the dead stroke." With $27,000 in David's pocket they took off together on an astonishing four-month odyssey across America-traveling from seedy, hole-in-the-wall billiard parlors to high-class snooker rooms to high-tension pro tourneys, from Seattle to Miami and back again-exploring a shady twilight subculture and uniquely American mythos, in search of serious money, local glory...and the perfect hustle.
Watter soort mens was dr. H.F. Verwoerd, die sesde premier van die
Unie van Suid-Afrika en grondlegger van die huidige Republiek? Die
bydraers tot hierdie boek skryf op onderhoudende wyse oor hoe hulle
hom onthou, wat hulle saam met hom beleef het en oor hulle
opvatting van sy politieke oogmerke. Die persoonlike aard van die
bydraes verleen ’n dimensie aan die boek wat in objektiewe
geskiedskrywing ontbreek. Verwoerd tree te voorskyn as vriend,
gesinsman, volksman, raadsman en leier. Hierdie bundel verskyn die
eerste keer in 2001 by geleentheid van die 100ste herdenking van
dr. Hendrik Frensch Verwoerd se geboortedag, 8 September 1901. Die
bygewerkte weergawe in 2016 bevat nuwe bydraes deur onder andere
Elise Verwoerd, Cas Bakkes en Albert Hertzog.
Ivan Petrov was born in 1934 in the industrial town of Chapaevsk.
His father was shot by Stalin as an 'enemy of the people', and Ivan
was brought up by his mother and violent stepfather - both
alcoholics, along with most of the rest of the town. By his early
20s, Ivan had also succumbed to the lure of the bottle. 'Smashed in
the USSR' is his eye-opening, frequently eye-watering story.
This is a book that takes the reader on a detailed tour of many of
the shores of Britain and Ireland and explains the reasons for
their remarkably different scenery. Why, for example, do the rocky
coastlines of Western Scotland and Ireland contrast so markedly
with the sandy beaches of East Anglia? It describes how the complex
coastline of North Wales evolved over some seven million years and
also traces the ways in which the human impact has changed all our
coastlines from prehistoric times to the present day. Crumbling
cliffs, stark headlands, coral beaches, shingle spits, sand dunes
and salt marshes - all are here, as are stories of Gaelic speakers,
fisherman's tales, saints and shipwrecks. One of the book's most
distinctive features tells how the author took part in one of the
National Trust's most successful initiatives, termed Enterprise
Neptune; how it was conceived and how it has led to the acquisition
of more than 775 miles of shoreline to be conserved for the nation
in perpetuity. The book also explores how famous artists, writers,
poets and composers have been inspired by coastal scenery to
produce some of their most important works. And what does the
future hold? What changes can we expect along our shores? The
concluding chapters examine the escalating threats resulting from
increasing human occupation and development and from the impact of
climate change. They outline some of the ways in which the National
Trust is responding to these challenges and how it is planning to
manage our coastal environment for many years to come.
Killing Crazy Horse is the latest installment of the
multimillion-selling Killing series is a gripping journey through
the American West and the historic clashes between Native Americans
and settlers. The bloody Battle of Tippecanoe was only the
beginning. It's 1811 and President James Madison has ordered the
destruction of Shawnee warrior chief Tecumseh's alliance of tribes
in the Great Lakes region. But while General William Henry Harrison
would win this fight, the armed conflict between Native Americans
and the newly formed United States would rage on for decades.
Bestselling authors Bill O'Reilly and Martin Dugard venture through
the fraught history of our country's founding on already occupied
lands, from General Andrew Jackson's brutal battles with the Creek
Nation to President James Monroe's epic "sea to shining sea"
policy, to President Martin Van Buren's cruel enforcement of a
"treaty" that forced the Cherokee Nation out of their homelands
along what would be called the Trail of Tears. O'Reilly and Dugard
take readers behind the legends to reveal never-before-told
historical moments in the fascinating creation story of America.
This fast-paced, wild ride through the American frontier will shock
readers and impart unexpected lessons that reverberate to this day.
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